Meaningful At Last
Aug. 31st, 2010 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliI hate last names.
One charm of epic fantasy and sword-and-sorcery is that the settings lend themselves to no last names -- only personal names and whatever bynames my fancy comes up with. But a steampunk pseudo-Victorian settings kinda needs last names.
Last names are a lot more likely to be Meaningful, and blatantly so. Smith. Green. Forrest. Eagleton. And when they aren't, they tend to carry their ethnic background more strongly. Smith -- well, "Smith" in some form or another is wide spread, so it carries less baggage. (At least, I find them less ethnic, which is what amuses my muse.)
And then, of course, unless you're going to refer to them solely by their last names, a stunt I can only pull off for bit characters, you have their first names, too, which doubles your chances at Meaningful Namehood. Rose Greene is pitching the vegatation theme a bit high. . . .
sigh
One charm of epic fantasy and sword-and-sorcery is that the settings lend themselves to no last names -- only personal names and whatever bynames my fancy comes up with. But a steampunk pseudo-Victorian settings kinda needs last names.
Last names are a lot more likely to be Meaningful, and blatantly so. Smith. Green. Forrest. Eagleton. And when they aren't, they tend to carry their ethnic background more strongly. Smith -- well, "Smith" in some form or another is wide spread, so it carries less baggage. (At least, I find them less ethnic, which is what amuses my muse.)
And then, of course, unless you're going to refer to them solely by their last names, a stunt I can only pull off for bit characters, you have their first names, too, which doubles your chances at Meaningful Namehood. Rose Greene is pitching the vegatation theme a bit high. . . .
sigh